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Video Games

Get your indie gaming groove on

Leading up to the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, game publisher Activision commissioned a slick, clever commercial starring Sam Worthington (Avatar) as a grizzled soldier showing fresh-faced Jonah Hill (Superbad) the ropes on the battlefield.

It was a very funny bit of advertising, part of a monstrous marketing push behind the game. What's also funny is the commercial's budget was higher than the entire production costs of any of the games you see on this page.

(OK, I'm pulling that factoid out of my butt. But seriously, I bet it's true.)

Lost among the roar of dragons, the growls of superheroes and the chatter of machineguns are these no less worthy, no less addictive, no less amazing games that simply don't have the profile to compete toe-to-toe with the obscene glut of blockbuster titles released around this time of year.

But each of these recent indie games has managed to pull me away from the slums of Arkham City, the skyscrapers of Steelport and even the mountains of Skyrim at one time or another over the last month. That's power.

If you want to show your computer some gaming love, need a break from triple-A blockbusters or just don't have enough scratch for a brand a new game, please give some of my recent indie faves a shot. What they lack in advertising, they make up for with awesomeness.

Minecraft ($27, via minecraft.net)

This lo-fi, open-ended world-building game -- finally out of beta and available now as a finished but still-evolving product -- needs no introduction. It's all too easy to get lost in these randomly generated worlds for days on end, as you carve rock fortresses into mountainsides, divert streams around handbuilt cabins and cower in the darkness from blocky zombies.

While I don't have much use for the new experience point system that's been added to the game (nor the powerful dragon that must ultimately be defeated to "win"), the core experience remains something truly special.

Cave Story+ ($9.99, via steampowered.com and the Mac App Store)

One of the best-known and most beloved indie games of the last decade recently made its debut on the PC and Mac with in this plus-ified form. The retro visuals are a deliberate homage to the 8-bit games of yesteryear (though you can also play with new, HD graphics), and the action and storyline are as tight as any old-school Castlevania, Metroid or Zelda game. Deeply, deeply satisfying.

To the Moon ($13, via freebirdgames.com)

Imagine Inception meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets an old-school Japanese role-playing game and you've kind of got this quirky, comical and surprisingly touching game about a pair of doctors who must navigate a dying man's memories to fulfil his final wish. It's brain-bending, rib-tickling, heartstring-tugging and quite unlike anything else out there.

This oddly monikered gem is a sequel to 2009's AaaaaAAaaaAAAaa AAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, a ridiculously fun and surprisingly deep game about free-falling headlong through clusters of floating skyscrapers in a dystopian future. The presentation is both tongue-in-cheek and super-slick, and this sequel remasters the original's 82 levels while adding 43 new ones, including a batch set on the moon. I fell for this game the first time I played it. Ha ha! Gravity humour.

Sequence ($4.99, via Steam)

If Puzzle Quest is Bejeweled with fantasy RPG trappings, Sequence is Guitar Hero (or Rock Band or Dance Dance Revolution) with deliberately ironic RPG trappings. A bizarre blend of rhythm game and role-player, it tells the story of a young man named Ky who wakes up in a weird, monster-infested tower and must use music to battle beasties (and verbal jabs to battle his unseen shepherd, mentor and will-they-or-won't-they love interest, Naia). I set The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim aside for hours to play this game -- and that pretty much says it all.